I guess maybe to a boy of fourteen it was a big thing, an adult thing full of responsibility. It was that night in February, the first Sunday of the month when I speak of, when my Ma and Pa told me to carry a message into the Yankee encampment, that it was most urgent. I could be held and condemned to hang if untruthful; that I would be shot through and left for dead if any rebels caught me without excuse. This big thing I had to do, and I couldn’t choose what to do; but instead I had to obey, or my Ma and Pa could be killed too.
Not an easy thing to do the more one thinks of it; be a messenger that must pronounce doom to the least favored among us all. That is what it was, and that was the task given me to accomplish, and I did it. It made my Pa proud of me and I would hear him discuss it sometimes with Ma in front of my younger brother and sister. Ma would always reply, “Well, the boy had to do what he had to do,” and then she would turn silent, just like the other two.
I hadn’t been fourteen for even a month when my account all takes place. No sooner had I had my birthday it seems, when the Yanks then started really moving into our neighborhoods and occupying key locations as though they meant to stay forever. Every crossroad had its picket posted and nobody could do much of anything without being seen. Forget hiding from them; no sooner you find a place of seclusion and two Yanks join you out of thin air, it seemed.
Of course night was a different matter and had a way for darkness to even up the score. Instead of being free to disappear into the still of the night, and settle those differences that divided us all, we were told on February 1, per posted account from the Union Officials of a census. It seems the Yanks were going to make all decisions for us, whether we voted yea or nay on it, for any male fourteen and older was now required to submit his name and age and place of residence to their brass rule. They could call on us at anytime.
Who can’t appreciate the memory of having that ability to hide; to just up and disappear as soon as the tramp of a foot was heard, or the neighing of a strange horse? One month I could melt into the forest and field anytime day or night, and then, ‘whammoh’, I must stand at bayonets’ end and answer ‘to the best of my recollection’ what I may or may not have seen or heard. All this at fourteen came on me as of a sudden without previous foreknowledge, because of General Milroy!
Four or five of our neighboring counties received the decree with us in Franklin, and I saw the document with my Pa right after it was posted in Hillsborough. It was signed as the order of General Milroy at the bottom of it, and it addressed all our communities to the south and east of Nashville; Tullahoma, Manchester, Franklin, Spring Hill, Nolensville.... Pa just stood there real silent for a minute and I could tell he was thinking something real deep inside. Then he spat on the ground, and said, “Well my boy, it looks like these Yankee fellows want to meet you all of a sudden.”
I had to get Pa to read it all aloud to me because the war had taken over our lives and turned our education into real situations. I hadn’t yet mastered the art of the alphabet but I could shoe a horse and tell you how long it had been since last done, and how many miles it had come. So Pa finished reading that document to me, and ended it, “....By order of General Milroy, February 1, 1865.” Then he stood there silent as a prayer, and eventually spat down at the earth.
Of course I recognized the point being made. When the Yanks had moved in and started staying put, they soon realized most all our horses and crops for the coming winter and spring had been given to the rebels. I still say ‘Why not?’ because it was for sure all our own territory and we were near all confederates; at least until put to the end-point of the bayonet, we were. The Yanks didn’t care much for that at all, and instead of condemning the whole southern population as being rebels, they devised this new way for us to ‘correct our sympathies’.
Now the decree that was issued pronounced all active confederates and their aidors and abettors to be guilty of horse thieving, murder, robbery and every other indecent crime one could bear wink at. So this General Milroy from somewhere up north, who Pa says must be a pretty important General, declared any rebels caught as being good as dead, and any helping them, likewise. For a boy of fourteen, that was a hard nugget to bite into. I could tell my Pa was concerned when he took me by the scruff and made me march beside him into the nearest department headquarters.
Now, as a fourteen year old I had to become known by that brass rule, where not five days before I was unknown like my younger brother and sister still were. I thought about that when I heard my Pa talking after it all. The younger ones would never understand, no matter what Ma or Pa could say at the table, what I did; and Ma was right: “I guess the boy just had to do what he had to do.” Yet all this ‘having to do’ stuff just didn’t seem right to me, and I had to question Pa about it.
See, the rest of that decree stated that as soon as any rebel showed himself anywhere in any of our neighborhoods, we were to high-tail to the nearest Company Headquarters’ with such information as we had, and then form up among ourselves as a home guard so as to fight it out with our own people. We were to quell our own rebellion this way, as the Yanks were to witness and decide for us, and report. We had no choice at all anymore in these matters, not even the depth of a grave. This was not a good omen for a boy of fourteen to be cast in under. I had my favorites, and I told Pa so, and let him know General Milroy wasn’t one of them.
Pa looked at me real stern then, and said the old times were at an end, and we all needed to change our ways, like it or not; “I don’t like it, son, but ain’t no good choice in the matter either way. They mean their word to do it, no excuse. Let’s you and me try to get along with it, else we will just end up fertilizer for next year’s crops.” And that was the final word on that discussion until afterward, because Ma agreed with Pa.
What all this meant to us wasn’t fully apparent right then in the beginning, or at least to me it wasn’t. Maybe Pa knew some more and was keeping it a secret? Maybe that decree said more than he read to me outloud, but I knew I had lost my ability to hide, and Pa was making sure I stayed close by the farm. Of course there is always work to be done on a farm, and I was given plenty of responsibility already, mainly because the war had taken away so much.
Wood gets chopped, water wells get redone, and all kinds of bustle takes place to make ready for any new event that might suddenly occur. The youngest two were now made the errand runners, in case we needed to ‘borrey’ from our neighbors, or just return a favor for past deeds already fulfilled. So I couldn’t venture astray at all out of the earshot of any beckoning call either Ma or Pa could holler from the porch or barn. My mind was kept busy too, so all those daydreams and ‘what-if’s?’ were left alone by the sweeping broom at the front door.
It wasn’t but a few days after our sign-up on Tuesday that a small group of Yankees rode up on horseback; probably Friday. Instead of dodging on out of sight, I came up close to find out what the visit was about. Pa was standing there. They were ‘just visiting’ down the road a farther piece and asked if any unexpected bullet or ambush by confederates awaited them. Pa just looked at ‘em for a minute as though he was counting over how many horses were there in front of him, and if one or two more might be hidden somewhere else, and says to them, “Men, it’s a cold day today, and not the first hint of any sun, and things looking likely to rain. Did you invite any?”
They most likely got satisfied after speaking a bit to themselves, and my Pa and me still standing there counting their horses, when they said old man Strickland, our neighbor hadn’t seen anything. Pa sort of nodded and spoke first more to me than the Yanks, “He’s near blind anyway.” Then he said, “Ya’ll be gone, now. Me and Jeremy here have work to get done. No one but my family is holed up here with our one mule and the rooster’s crew. That means they are somewhere else. Besides, we already ate the pig and I haven’t been up the road.” So they reined off their mounts and left.
Pa hadn’t lied or fudged the truth much at all. We still had some of the pig left, and all this meant something big to me. We both stood and watched them disappear on down the road. I hadn’t said a word, but waited for Pa, and we both returned to doing our chores and keeping warm. Though he seemed to lay it all to rest, I could tell Pa knew he would see them back again. That stayed on my mind almost all day, and being close to sundown when we were getting ready to sit for supper, we heard their horses cantor on past back toward Hillsborough.